COLLEGE DEGREES
The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6. Why would a child not depart from the good training that his parents gave him? Years of good training have become a habit for the child. And a good habit is hard to change. Just like a bad habit is difficult to change.
How can parents train their children in the way that they should go when many parents themselves were often not prepared to raise a home? Many parents work long hours to pay for their rent, food, and expenses to raise their children. And seldom do they have enough time for their children
We can ask this question back and forth for several generations to find whom can we put the blame on, and we still don’t know the answer.
And so, who can train us in the way that we should go to become good parents to our children? This is not an easy question to answer. Even God could not raise Adam and Eve to be obedient adult children. They do what they want to do. Raising adults to become good obedient little children is often next to impossible. Why? Because many, if not most adults, think that they know better than their parents about running their own lives. Also, children think that their parents should consider and accept their children's point of view and accept their choices, whatever they may be, right or wrong. In short, parents have nothing to say. Children make their own decision. And God has nothing to say either, whether He agrees or not with our concept of living in sin under “grace”. We make our decision for ourselves and not God. I know that God does not want us to live in sin. And certainly, He does not want us to live in sin under “grace”. Living in sin under “grace” prolongs our sinful life. God wants us to repent today, and not prolong our sinful life. Repenting from a sinful life, however, is never an easy job. But it can be done if we have faith in Him. And we must earnestly ask Him for help and we must try hard to change our bad habits so we can live an exemplary life like the prophet Noah and the prophet Enoch did.
In Matthew 5:48 Jesus said, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” And living in sin under “grace” can never make us perfect. We will get deeper and deeper into sin until the Holy Spirit leaves us. Ask Jesus to help us to repent, and have faith in Him, and one day He will show us a way how we can get out of our sinful life. Trust Him, and just wait patiently.
Back to the question of how parents can train a child in the way that he should go? This requires that parents must first know the job of parenting. Most newlywed couples don’t know what is involved in starting a home and raising children. And not only that, some don’t know each other well enough. For example, is there a history of mental illness in their potential spouse’s family? If there is, cancel the wedding plan. I have seen in my life a number of parents who have crazy adult children, males, and females. They look handsome and beautiful, but they are crazy. They have some form of mental illness which usually shows up in their adult years. And they are not on drugs.
Our educational systems offer all kinds of classes from dog and cat grooming, making pancakes, math, reading, writing, English, Spanish, and psychology, to anything that we want we can find in college except how to raise a child in the way that he should go? Or how to be good parents? This kind of education is sorely needed in our college education system starting in high school. Don’t wait until people have to look for therapists to help them. Also, not everybody has the funds to pay for a therapist, and when they do it is usually too late.
What can the church do? Most churches can do little. They do not have the resources or skills to educate “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6.
This is what they can usually do well as described in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, [because] they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn [their] ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” Finally, I want to say this. Always be grateful to God for anything that He gave us.
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